Only Human
by Mirsa
Summary: captured by an unsub, Reid and Carys face impossible choices.


Carys wakes up on a stone slab, wrists manacled to the rock face. She strains her muscles taunt but to no avail – the person who did this to her knew what she was capable of and made sure there was no escape for her. She could sit up, but her feet were shackled with only a link of leeway. Her wrists were bound straight to the stone.

All of a sudden a sound reaches her, and she whips her head around, trying to pinpoint the source. The room is sparsely lit, a few hanging lights illuminating the area she was in, leaving the rest in shifting gloom. Her hair is loose, and it flies around her with each motion.

Just as she turns her head to the right for another look, a movement on her left makes her do a double take. There, stumbling into the light was Reid, and she could tell he was worse off than her.

Someone had shoved him into view, and he stood at the outermost perimeter of her ring of light, tottering slightly, his eyes darting from the captor she could not see to her, widening as he took in the sight of her chained hand and foot but sitting upright and apparently unharmed. She could see relief flood his face at that simple, easily altered fact, but she was glad of it all the same.

"Go stand next to her. I know you've been anxious to see her."

Reid glanced up at the words, hesitating, but did as he was told, shuffling till he stood next to Carys. She looked up at him, her face blank but her eyes betraying the terror she felt. He tried to smile, to reassure her, but knew there was no point – she, like him, was a government agent and they'd both been trained to accept the inevitable if faced with it.

She wanted to talk to him, oh, how badly she wanted to talk to him, to hear him talk to her in return. But she daren't upset the man who held them at his mercy, and so she let her body talk for her; the visible relaxing, the slight tilt of her head, the tremble at the corner of her mouth that told him of the smile she wanted to give him, but couldn't force past her fear.

But just as suddenly, her little hints erased themselves when the slender barrel appeared to her right, just away from her body. She couldn't bring herself to turn her head, and it took all her willpower to remain silent and outwardly calm and to _keep looking at Reid_. His attention, however, was totally given to the man, and she could see him fighting to keep his face as neutral as possible.

"Now, just like I told you."

Involuntarily her head turned toward the voice, but it became another double take when something glinted in Reid's hand and he attempted to hide it from her. But she knew; nothing had quite the same look as a needle. Her mouth opened as if to say something, but a shot from the gun silenced her, making her curl in on herself as much as the bindings would allow.

Her head was still curled inwards, her hair hanging like a veil as she listened to Reid kneel down beside her. She refused to move as she felt his hand gently swipe her hair aside and hook it behind her ear. The brush of his fingertips on her skin made her inhale sharply and open her eyes, looking at him with an expression of unadulterated fear.

"If you don't do it, you get to watch her suffer and then I'll make you kill her all the same."

At his words, Carys closed her eyes for a moment and bit her lip to keep back the words she would hurl at the man. Now she slowly turned her head to glare at him, a dark silhouette against the light. The gun was pointed at her head, and she knew they had no choice. She turned to look Reid in the eye, a slight nod telling him to proceed.

He shook his head, dropping it against his chest as he tried to fight the inevitable. She didn't say an audible word, but it was if she spoke to his mind. _I want to die by your hand._ His head shaking became vigorous, and only now did she break the silence.

"Reid."

Reluctantly he brought his head up to look at her once. Her eyes were soft, lips just parted and now the forgotten smile turned them upwards. Vowing to commit that expression to memory, Reid bit his lip and nodded, before lifting his hands, the one holding the needle, and the other pulling her thick hair away from her neck.

_I beg your forgiveness._

Pinpricks she could handle, but as the liquid in the vial was injected into her body, the searing heat flooded through her veins, and she doubled over, clenched teeth not enough to stop the cry of pain. But as quickly as it had come, it was over. She felt her body fading, losing control of her muscles. It took all her strength to turn her head to look at Reid one last time before her head fell forward.

The last thing she felt was a soft kiss on her shoulder before the sensation of floating carried her away into the night.

Carys awoke in the same place; that she could tell instantly. Only a few things had changed this time. The lights were dimmed, the one directly over her the only one still at full brightness. The other thing she noted immediately was that her hands and feet were no longer bound, and that someone – probably Reid – had placed her hands on her stomach, as if she was sleeping.

A tingling buzz on the spine of her neck told her why she was still alive – the toxin neutralizer implanted into her body worked and was functioning at full capacity. Sitting up, she closed her eyes and felt around with her senses, trying to ascertain if their kidnapper was nearby. No life forces disturbed her, but she knew better than to wait for help.

Vaulting lightly off the stone slab, she made her way to the near-by chair where she had spied her things laid out neatly. Of course, all her obvious weapons were no longer an option, as they had been emptied or taken, but of course, she was not an obvious choice for an inside worker. The blades concealed inside her vest, along with the prototype firearm in the souls of her shoes, were the only things she needed to rescue Reid.

Her body was ridged as she stood with her gun pointed at the man that had caused her hell. Her hand was shaking so badly she almost feared she would fire unintentionally. Almost. He lay on the ground, her disarming wound making sure he wouldn't give much of a fight when the FBI agents arrived. But it took all her willpower _not_ to give in, _not_ to serve to the man the justice she so dearly wanted to give.

She felt a hand wrap around hers, and it was enough to break her out of the trance. Forcing her fingers open, she released the weapon into less impassioned hands. With nothing to hold it there, the arm fell limply to her side, and she took a small, stumbling step back, trying to tear her eyes away from the man who had caused her so much fear.

Three stumbles back too many and she felt her legs give out and she only caught herself out of force of habit. There was movement all around her, FBI and police and paramedics, but her world was silent and still, everything blurring into itself as she tried to make sense of it all.

Her head was down, she didn't see who it was that approached her but then again, she didn't need to. It was the one presence she'd been searching for as she's made her way towards her captor, and now it stopped her mental processing in its tracks.

She felt his hands on her arms, steadying her as she dared to look up, to see into his eyes, warm and molten and very much alive. They stared at each other for what some would say seemed like forever, but for her it was the barest amount of time at all, not near long enough for her tastes. Then suddenly everything went out of her and she let her head fall, leaning her body forward to rest against his chest.

She couldn't get her body to do like it was supposed to, no matter how much she threatened it in her mind. Her muscles refused to move her limbs, her brain refused to concoct any coherent thought other than _He's alive_, her mouth refused to emit anything that made any sense. The only thing she seemed capable of doing was to suddenly cling to Reid's shirt when the paramedics made to stand her up and get her on a gurney.

At once her brain kicked into gear, and the emotions of the ordeal came back in a rush and it was all he could do to keep her from attacking the medics or anyone that came too near. The paramedics could see no physical damage to her, and so they allowed him to escort her outside to the waiting ambulance. A simple task, she thought, but her body did not agree, and so, when Reid emerged from the dark of the lair, he had Carys in his arms, her body curled as close to him as she could get without strangling him.

"It's ok to be afraid."

She'd begun shaking violently, and he was worried she was going into severe shock. She looked at him as he sat her on a waiting gurney.

"I wasn't afraid … "

"We're only human."

"I wasn't afraid … for _me_."


End file.
